Neighbors Save Couple From 2-Alarm Upper Lawrenceville Fire

UPPER LAWRENCEVILLE (KDKA) – Neighbors jumped in to help when a row home caught fire in the Upper Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh Tuesday morning.

According to officials at the scene, the fire started at a row home in the 5300-block of Keystone Street around 2:30 a.m.

The couple who lives in the home didn’t hear their smoke alarms going off and had no idea their house was on fire.

In minutes, everything changed as fire filled their row home. .

“I woke up to hearing their fire alarm and I thought it was one of my roommate’s alarm clocks. I heard crackling outside and from my house in my bedroom, I can see into their window and I saw the fire and called 911,” Abby Phillipi said.

While Phillipi heard the alarm, the couple inside did not. She ran to the house and started screaming for them to get out.

“The guy said he didn’t wake up until he heard me screaming to get out,” Phillipi said.

The man made it out, but the woman was still on the second floor. Neighbors said that as firefighters were going in to rescue her, the woman had managed to crawl out of a first floor window.

At that point, smoke started to consume neighboring homes.

Fire investigators believe the fire started in the kitchen as the result of a cooking accident.

Next door neighbor, Karen Siriano, thought it was her home at first, but saw fire shooting from her neighbor’s window.

She rushed to get her daughter and 3-year-old granddaughter out of her home.

“My concern was my granddaughter, getting out before the smoke got up to her room. But everybody’s fine,” Siriano said.

Fire officials said unfortunately by the time firefighters got in, they found the couple’s two dogs dead inside.